The Importance of Being Emma
by 13pens
Summary: Regina knows she's desperate when she's willing to steal Emma's identity to win Henry's love. Regina/Emma/Henry, with SQ if you squint.


**A/N:** I've spent an aggravating amount of time on this fic because it didn't really feel right - I've reworked it to the best of my ability and I hope you can find something in it.

**A/N2:** I totally took the title off of Oscar Wilde's "The Importance of Being Earnest" but don't expect it to be nearly as funny.

**A/N3:** I haven't forgotten about To Err is Human. I assure you this summer break will be fruitful.

* * *

Deep breaths.

A part of her doesn't want to do this, but she's on the verge of losing it all, and one can already argue that she already has. Regina Mills is not one to let conscience in the way of her crimes, but what she is about to do is something even she has doubts of. Not just about whether or not the act itself will work, but, similar to all of her other plans, will it fail to bring her closer to her happiness in the end?

No - this will have to do. It is drastic and she'll be living a lie for the rest of her life, maybe - but the fact is no stranger to her. If this is the way it has to be, then so be it.

Regina leaves the plain apple turnover half eaten on the kitchen counter to help set up the story to ensue. Only Henry will paint the picture, and assume that she had bit into the poison because she had had enough. He'll care very little, she predicts. The thought stings, and she immediately waves it away.

When someone at the front door knocks, she knows exactly who it is, and she is prepared - or willing to believe that she is, all the same. Deep breaths, she tells herself. But she seems to have stopped.

She walks out of the kitchen and opens the white door to reveal a frantic and impatient Emma Swan. For a moment, Regina wonders if Emma had seen this coming, but keeps herself together.

"We need to talk," Emma says. Regina imagines they do. And she imagines, with great anticipation, that after this encounter she'll never have to speak with Emma again.

* * *

Emma leaving town is not part of Regina's plan. She panics, then, and when Emma notices it's too late to turn back.

She takes Emma's hand and presses the ring hard onto her palm, causing a spark of pain and a gravity that makes Emma feel like she is carrying the entire weight of the world.

"What the hell are you doing?"

Regina doesn't answer, because everything begins to go black for the both of them. She can feel the blood course through her body and then she feels nothing; for a moment it is all sight but no sound or sensation. She blinks hard.

She has no time to express malice, to drink in the feeling of victory and finally have a taste of what it is like to win.

When she opens her eyes again, the weight of a body collapses into red-sleeved arms.

* * *

It takes a moment to recollect herself. Everything in this body feels foreign. It is warmer, although the fingertips are icy. Regina shakes as Emma's heart beats against her chest, an irregular pounding pace.

It is disconcerting, to say the least, to hold her own empty body. Her face is still, calm - it is the closest glimpse of death Regina has ever experienced.

What happens next is something she did not expect, nor want, for that matter. Her head throbs as if someone is inside, pounding away at her skull and demanding to be released. Turns out, when Regina hears Emma's voice shouting from within, there is.

_"What the hell just happened? What did you do?"_

"Shut up," Regina grunts as she brings Emma's hand to her temple.

_"It's all true. Oh my God, it's all true."_

Just then she feels her presence regurgitate. Regina eases the both of them to the ground, pats the marble floor in search of the green gem ring that served as her gate to Emma's body. She hastily puts it on her finger, and the magic that allows her to remain in this vessel silences any resistance.

She takes a deep breath. Her lungs feel jagged.

"I can tell you used to smoke," Regina comments, her remarks sounding unnatural in Emma's mouth.

_"I'll fucking smoke you if you don't turn this shit around!"_

"Hush. I have no interest in hearing such vulgar language."

She holds on to her comatose body as she pats Emma's pockets for her phone. Upon finding it, she dials the station.

"Sheriff Swan?" a voice answers.

_"Is that William? William! William!"_

"Yes," Regina says, feigning panic. At least half of it is real at the way she uses Emma's voice, unwieldy and high pitched. "We've got an emergency at the Mayor's."

* * *

The official story is that Regina had asked Emma to speak with her in her home, perhaps on the matters with Henry. When she arrived, Regina was feeling ill, and before Emma knew it, she'd collapsed.

Regina knows that the fabrication is thin and see-through, but to her surprise no one doubts her. It takes her a moment to realize that it is only because the face she wears is Emma Swan's, and no one in this town distrusts her enough.

They rush Regina's body to the hospital, and the real Regina looks through the glass. She sees the look on the faces of the nurses and doctors. They're trying to save her life not because they want to, but because she is their mayor, and that is their work ethic.

If it were Emma, or Mary Margaret Blanchard, or even that idiot David Nolan, it would be different. The heart in Emma's body beats violently in anger, but it all melts away at the sound of Henry's voice.

"Emma," he calls, and for a moment she forgets that he's talking to her.

_"Henry!"_

"Henry," she says, enveloping him into a hug that has never been reciprocated quite the same since he became wary of her curse. The circumstances are horrible, but she doesn't want to let go. She rests her cheek on the top of his head and it feel as if she may never get this chance again.

Mary Margaret follows behind him. "Emma? What's going on?"

_"I couldn't even begin to tell you that, Mary -"_

"Shut up!" Regina snaps out loud, surprising both Mary Margaret and Henry.

"Sorry," she says, trying to get used to Emma's mouth and sounding less articulated. "Just a little..."-_oh what is that vocabulary of yours, Miss Swan?_ -"strung-out."

She sees Henry peek through the glass doors, and he catches sight of Regina's body behind the commotion of machinery and staff.

"Is that..."

There is genuine concern in his voice that Regina wants to deny. She doesn't want a reason to go back, not after she's done this.

"Mary Margaret," Regina says, the name softer on this tongue than on her own, "thanks for bringing Henry here. But we've got to go."

_"Like hell you do."_

"But -" Henry begins to protest.

Regina takes his hand. They feel so warm, so soft. And for once, he isn't pulling away. Emma's voice is suddenly uncharacteristically silent.

"You'll see her later," she lies. "For now, let the doctors do their thing."

* * *

Henry asks to go home, just as Regina plans, and she promises him that she'll stay here with him until things get better. She pretends not to see the relief on his face.

When he finds the turnover on the kitchen counter, his face is unreadable.

"Is there something wrong, Henry?"

He doesn't answer.

* * *

She tucks him into bed that night.

"It's nice that you're doing this," he tells her. "You'd make a good mom, Emma."

"If that were true she wouldn't have given you up," Regina finds herself remarking as she combs through his hair with her fingers, forgetting herself.

"Huh?"

"Nothing, Henry. Goodnight."

She kisses his head and he doesn't even ask any more questions.

* * *

_"I can't believe you. I swear, I'll ..."_

_"You swear you'll do what, Miss Swan? I'm in control now. You have no say anymore."_

_"Why are you doing this? What do you want from me?"_

_"I want my son back."_

_"I was going to leave town, things were going to work out."_

_"No. As long as you're in his life I'll never have him."_

_"Regina..."_

* * *

"Your Majesty," Jefferson says without mirth when Regina comes knocking on his door late at night. "Blonde doesn't suit you."

"Neither do these jackets, but alas, we can't have it all, can we?" She walks in without invitation and he knows for sure her plan had worked.

"Having fun?"

"Quite. Though there is one... repercussion, to say the least."

_"Hey, I know this bastard. Are you telling me he was right, too? What in the name of..."_

Regina winces and if she could mentally put a gag on Emma, she would.

"I have yet to see your part of the deal fulfilled, Regina," he warns, but as ever, she is unthreatened. Just like the Swan before her.

Perhaps, in another life, he would have thought they were the same person after all.

"You'll have your daughter. Patience, dear Jefferson."

She walks around and surveys the room as if she had never seen it before, as if she herself had not constructed it just for him.

"You said you'd rewrite the curse."

"Change of plans. The curse is going to break."

_"What?"_

"And how do you suppose that's going to happen?"

She turns around to him, wearing that wicked smirk and holding her arms out to present herself. "I'm the savior, of course. The Evil Queen will die soon, I'm sure. It might take a while, she does have tendency to be quite stubborn. When she's gone the ring's effect will be permanent. And everyone gets their happy ending. Isn't that how it goes? The witch dies and the heroes live happily ever after?"

_"Regina, you wouldn't... don't do this."_

Jefferson scoffs. "You're no hero."

"I can be."

_"There is another way."_

"Tell me, since when were you so quick to abandon yourself?"

Regina glares hard at him, wondering how different she looks with those piercing green eyes as her daggers. "When everyone else chose to."

* * *

In the morning, she forgets herself and proceeds routine for breakfast. She makes him pancakes with an amount of chocolate chips she normally would have never allowed, along with a cup of hot chocolate with cinnamon. She focuses on how happy he'll be when he sees her, and that for once he'll eat beside her on the dining table rather than at the farthest point away.

Emma is silent the whole way through. Regina hopes that she's given up, or is too exhausted to protest this body hi-jack. To her dismay, it was not the case.

_"He's really all you have to look forward to, isn't he?"_

Regina sets down the maple syrup harder than she intended. "Yes. Now quiet."

_"He's all you've ever looked forward to."_

"I didn't know you could cook so well," Henry muses when he enters the kitchen and smells the good, and gives her a hearty smile.

"There's a lot you don't know, kid," she replies. It's coming naturally to her now, sounding like Emma, especially after having to hear her all the time. There are obvious tradeoffs to this scheme, this being one of them, but having Henry with her outweighs it all.

She's putting his coat on for him when he asks about Regina. "Is my mom okay?"

Regina takes a deep breath, and waves away the thought that she may have been wrong. She crouches down to his eye level, something she did all the time as Regina - it's such second nature that she doesn't think for a moment that it may be a giveaway.

His eyes are so bright whenever he speaks to Emma. The eyes she's used to nowadays are always dull, dismissive, full of contempt.

"They called in this morning," she lies, taking his hands and stroking them with her thumbs. "She hasn't woken up."

If Regina is to feel safe, if she is to walk around living this lie without constantly being reminded of it, she needs him to let go the way she was already convinced he had.

_"Oh, don't. Don't tell him what I think you're about to tell him." _

"Henry, I..." she starts, clearing her throat. "I do believe you. You're right, this is too freaky to have a logical explanation. But," she interrupts the excitement that builds up in him, "if... maybe the curse will break if Regina stays down, you know?"

"What?"

"What I mean is maybe if she weakens, the curse will, too, right?"

_"You're horrible. You're horrible beyond belief."_

"I don't want her to die."

"I'm not saying she will. But think about it, Henry. I can be your mother." She places a gentle finger beneath his chin. "Isn't that what you want?"

Henry looks away. It's probably the first time he's done so with Emma in front of him. "Not like this."

She doesn't understand. What other way is there?

* * *

_"Regina, you don't have to do this."_

_"No. I don't believe you."_

* * *

She drops him off to school, and she has never in her twenty-eight years in Storybrooke received so many smiles from people on the street before. Everyone adores Emma Swan. They respect her, they trust her. They're her friends. David gives her a warm smile on passing. Mary Margaret waves and tells Emma to take care. She hates them, she really does, but she often wonders why they are so compassionate to Emma, even when they are unaware of who she really is to them.

The next day she decides to explore the depths of these favors and stops by the diner before going to work (which, she needs to remind herself, is not at town hall).

"The usual, Ems?" Ruby pipes up, delighted to see her as ever.

"Um, I'll take a coffee this time."

"Rough night?" she asks as she prepares the hot drink.

"I guess you could say that."

"I imagine. The mayor's down and you've got all that stuff with Henry to deal with. I'll get you some lunch to go, too."

"Ah, that won't be necessary - "

"It's no problem. It'll go on your tab. You look like you could use a bite or two."

_"So this is what it's like, Miss Swan."_

_"What? Getting free food?"_

_"Being kind to."_

"Thanks, Ruby."

"You deserve it. Stay safe."

_"Oh."_

* * *

She sits there in the sheriff's station contemplating removing the ring. She could take it off now, return in her own skin and letting Emma take what is rightfully hers.

But how can she bring herself to do that, when she's been shown nothing but kindness and regard all this while? When she can walk the streets of her own town and never pretend that she doesn't hear the whispers behind hands, the looks of fear, the glares, the underlying hatred that even after a curse and twenty-eight years has never been removed? How can she return to being hated, loathed, by the town and by her own son, when she can remain in this life, where if the curse were broken, she could have love and family? Isn't that what she wants in the end? Isn't that what Emma will inevitably get? Henry may show a dash of concern for Regina every now and then, but what is she compared to the life he'll have with Emma and the kingdom that adores her family?

She twists the ring enough to slide it halfway through her finger. She does it just to hear what Emma has to say:

_"This is not how happy endings are supposed to be."_

* * *

Regina doesn't know why she feels sick when she goes to take a shower. She avoids the mirror like a plague, and lets the showerhead do all the work instead of using her hands to scrub away the smell of sweat and other things.

It's not as if she's never worn someone else's skin before. She's sported different faces and hairs and clothes and sizes - but there were limits to replication, and they were never forever. They were not real bodies, bodies with history. This one is. And it's not just a body. It's Emma.

_"Your toenails are disgusting," _Regina thinks to Emma to distract herself from this train of thought. _"I thought I should let you know."_

_"Well isn't that the nicest thing someone's ever told me while inhabiting me."_

_"I'll take care of them if you want."_

_"Are you going to paint them and tell me about the hottest guy in your math class, too?"_

_"Fine, suit yourself."_

Emma is quiet as Regina lathers her hair.

_"Do you need to have someone to take care of that bad?"_

She rinses her hair, watches the shampoo run down to her feet and down the drain.

_"Maybe."_

The majority of the shower is spent with her eyes shut. That way she can pretend she never saw the faint scars on Emma's legs, belly, and arms.

* * *

"Goodnight, Mom."

"I... Goodnight, Henry."

* * *

A week passes by. Sometimes Regina forgets who she really is, and is no longer hesitant to turn around when Emma is called. She walks like her, talks like her. Emma's voice in her head grows quieter and quieter with each passing day, and she wonders if it's because they're slowly becoming the same person.

She's addicted to the way Emma feels. Her heart has been broken but still remains pure, untainted by darkness, even when she is tainted in the mind. There is an overpowering loneliness but no unfillable void, there is no dark propensity for hatred. When she looks at the people who have ruined her life as Regina, she is unable to summon the same anger and loathing she once did. Emma has a cold heart easily thawed.

She's lost herself within Emma, but it doesn't seem to matter as Henry walks besides her, holding her hand, going about incessantly about fairy tales and what they're next step in Operation Cobra is. She dries his hair with a towel and combs it and feigns annoyance when he shakes it into a disheveled mess. She helps him with his homework and he never tells her that he can do it by himself.

"Let me tell you a secret," he says to her one of those days.

"Yeah?"

"I can recite all the dialogue from this issue of Spiderman. You wanna hear?"

She knows. She's heard him do it all the time when he was younger.

He's never looked so happy in his life. She had never realized how lonely he was until she saw him like this, with Emma.

It's like he's forgotten all about Regina. It's like she has, too.

* * *

Henry climbs into Emma's bed in the guest room at around six in the morning. He hasn't done that with Regina since he was about five and still having night terrors, and Regina does not hesitate to welcome him into her arms under the covers.

"Isn't it a bit early for you to be up on a Saturday morning?"

He nuzzles into her and keeps his eyes closed, still crusty from sleep. "I miss my mom."

It is the first time he's mentioned her in a week, and her heart stills for a moment. Regina strokes his brown hair and does not reply.

"I didn't tell you, but Miss Blanchard took me to see her during lunch yesterday."

"Any luck?" She knows the answer but asks anyway.

"No." His voice is so small, as if he'd break. He takes a long pause before continuing. "Why didn't you tell me about the turnover?"

"I... I don't know what you're talking about, Henry."

"The one I found when we got here. Please don't tell me she really ate it. Please don't tell me it was because of me."

He breaks out into little sobs now, and Regina can't help but to hold him closer, placing kisses on the top of his head.

"This isn't how we were supposed to defeat the Evil Queen."

"But what then, Henry?" she finds herself saying, hurt and confusion welling up inside of her. "You don't want her dead, but you don't want to be with her. Why would you do that to her?"

He covers his head with the blankets and places his hands over his weeping face. "Does that make me evil, too, Emma?"

She rubs his shoulders, now violently shaking against her. "No, Henry," Regina says, with only a little bit of lie laced within her words, "of course it doesn't."

* * *

He's playing video games in the living room while she watches on the couch when she asks the question.

"Do you really think your mom is evil?"

"Yes," he answers.

"But you love her, don't you?"

Henry continues to press buttons on the controller with half of a present mind. He finally hits pause and looks down on his lap.

His voice is as quiet as it can get. "Yes."

"Henry," she begins, trying to unlearn everything she had about Emma while being her. "There is something I need to tell you."

_"I think it's time."_

_"What?"_

He turns around to face her and she motions for him to take a seat at the other end of the couch. She reaches for his hand, holds as if it may be the last time she ever holds him without him pulling away. It may very well be.

"Emma?"

"Henry, I'm... I've been lying to you. About many things, as you've already suspected, but this in particular..."

"What are you talking about? You've never lied to me."

"But I have. Henry, I'm not Emma."

"Huh?"

"It's been me all this time, I've-"

He works it out quickly. "_Mom_?"

His hand twitches in hers but it only brings her to hold it with both of hers, balling it into a little fist that she holds up close to her face like a microphone.

"Emma's not hurt, I promise. She's still in here." To soften things, she adds, "In fact she never shuts up."

"I want to talk to her."

She blinks away tears and lets them fall onto his little knuckles.

"You will. Come on, let's go."

_"Regina..."_

* * *

The car ride to the hospital is silent. Regina doesn't even pretend anymore, that her natural position is slouching or that she enjoys all this hair around her head. There is no room for pretending.

"I can't believe you lied to me," Henry says in a low voice when they park the buggy.

She looks regretfully at him, and when he looks back at her he can tell that it is really Regina behind those eyes and not Emma.

"Do you take it back?" she asks him.

"Take what back?"

She looks down and shakes her head, then, and unlocks the car. "Come on."

* * *

It happens just as quickly as it did the first time. She stands over her body with the enchanted ring in her hands as Henry stands at the doorway.

"Congratulations, Miss Swan," Regina says, the unnatural sound of Emma's own voice admitting defeat to herself seeming to shake inside her head. "You've won."

She ends it how it began, with the ring pressed onto the other's palm. The last of the magic is drained away as everything returns as it should be: Emma back in control, and Regina out of it.

* * *

Henry doesn't speak to her when Regina's eyes finally open. He watches his mothers talk in whispers before he bolts out of the room.

Regina is released two days after tests that give no signs of anything being wrong in the first place.

Emma waits for her at the front door when she comes home. It is surreal to her, to be back where she belongs. They both were used to the other's company inside her head. She'll be sure never to tell Regina how she kind of misses it.

Regina walks up to the porch, swallowing the lump in her throat.

"I'm going to miss knowing how to cook like you," Emma starts.

"How is he?"

Emma shrugs.

"I've lost him completely, haven't I?"

"No," she assures. "Just talk to him."

Regina nods and looks at the floor. "Thank you."

* * *

She finds him in his room, sitting at the edge of his bed and staring at nothing. He doesn't shout at her or tell her that he never wants to speak to her again, so she slowly enters his room.

"Henry?"

He is unresponsive. He balls up his hands together between his legs as he slightly swings his feet.

She kneels in front of him, putting her hand on his ankle. "I'm sorry."

She expects a "No, you're not," but it is not what she receives.

"Why did you do it?" he asks, and he doesn't seem angry at all. He seems hurt.

"I wanted... You love her so much more than me, Henry." Her brow knits at admitting it, tears forming in her eyes.

"You were going to let yourself die," he replies with even emotion, and his face can't help but to flush with frustration.

It makes sense to her, all of a sudden.

She puts on a sad smile. "I'd die for you all the time."

It's enough to make Henry cover his face with his hands again as he begins to cry. "You don't have to be Emma," he waters out. "You just have to be not evil."

Regina rises to wrap her arms around him, hushing him as if he were five again and waking up from nightmares.

"I'm so sorry, Henry. I'm sorry for lying to you about who I am, time and time again. But it'll be different now, I promise. I don't care about the curse anymore. All I care about is you."

Henry sniffles and returns the hug. "I'm sorry, too."

She pulls away to kiss the top of his head and thumb away the tears from his face.

When he finally says it, her heart becomes so full it might burst: "I love you, mom."

* * *

Emma brings an extra cup of coffee to town hall the next morning.

"I'm stacked in paperwork that the fill-in was too incompetent to complete," Regina says without looking up from her desk. "What do you want?

"I'm trying to be nice after you completely violated me and this is how you speak to me?" Emma feigns offense and places the cup on the desk. "You don't look half miserable."

"Thanks," Regina replies with dry humor as she takes a sip of coffee. "I promised him that things would change. That I'd help undo the curse."

"Good, we need an expert." Emma takes an ungraceful slurp out of her own cup. "Knowing this stuff is real is weird enough."

"It'll only get stranger from here on out, I'm afraid." Regina rises and walks across the room for a file in a cabinet.

Emma watches her shuffle through the papers for a few moments before speaking. "So you're really done with being the Evil Queen?"

"Well I don't want to be her anymore," Regina replies, retrieving the forms and returning to her desk without sitting down. "Being you was much more pleasant."

"But that backfired."

"It did." Regina pauses, gathering words to say. "I just want to be loved like you are. But I want to be loved as Regina."

Emma nods her head and looks downward, a faint smile on her face. She meets Regina in the eye, and says, "We'll work on that."

The ambiguous response renders Regina speechless for a moment, and Emma takes her cue to head to work, turning around to walk to the door.

"I'll see you and Henry around."

Regina supposes she will.

_end._


End file.
